Fresh Kills (34 page)

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Authors: Bill Loehfelm

BOOK: Fresh Kills
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I exhaled hard. “Well then, why bring it up? What do I tell Julia?”
“Tell her we know some things. More than we thought we would know. We got eyes and ears on it. Purvis’s call, in fact, came in the middle of a rather revealing conversation.”
“Why? Why are you calling in favors on this? Doing me favors? Why are you out, after hours, working this thing? You hated him. You hate me. You barely know Julia. He was my father, and I just want the whole thing to go away. There have got to be more important cases, more important people, on your list.” I decided to push. I leaned forward, resting my arms on the top of the front seat. Unrequited love dies hardest. “Is it because of my mother?”
Waters pulled the car to the curb, tossing me back in my seat, and turned to face me.
“Because someone committed a murder on my watch. He was your father, but he got killed on
my
street corner. Because it’s my fucking
job
to catch the guy who killed him. It’s what the city pays me to do. Shit, I knew the man. We were friends once. We had a history. I knew his wife longer than he did. I know his kids.” He dragged a hand down his face. He turned away from me, staring out the window.
“You wanna pretend you don’t care some stranger killed your father for no reason, fuckin’-A fine,” he said over his shoulder. “That’s between you and him and the Man Upstairs. But a lot of other people live in the neighborhood and that your father got whacked ain’t a secret. Those other people? Their safety, and their fear, is my responsibility. The concerns of good people matter to me.” He dragged hard on his smoke, turning again to face me. “And yeah, your mother’s memory matters to me. It
oughta
matter to
you
. Someone ought to speak for her, and for Julia, and, yeah, for your father, even if you lack the nerve, or the heart, or both.” He stared at me for a long moment. “Someone oughta speak for you, Junior. Someday, you’ll be glad somebody did.”
He turned and sat staring out the windshield, catching his breath. He tossed his smoke out the window then pulled the car back out onto the avenue. He drove faster.
Neither of us said another word until we pulled up in front of my parents’ house. He opened the back door of the car for me.
“Now I’m done with you,” he said, leaning against the car as I got out. “I don’t have much more faith in you than I have in Carlo, but I’m giving you orders anyway. Somebody has to.” He crossed his arms. “Stop spreading your shit around my island. This is the last break you get from me.”
I slammed the car door shut. “Thanks for the lift.”
Waters’s hand snapped out and grabbed the front of my jacket. He yanked me to him, my feet dragging on the pavement. His face was in mine, and I’d never even seen him move. He leaned over me. I dropped my cigarette.
“Look at me. Listen to me,” he said. I waited for the slap. “Stop. Stop spreading your garbage all over my island.” I hoped he couldn’t feel me shaking. “Do something with yourself, Junior. Your father is only half of who you are, if that much.”
He pushed me away from him. I adjusted my jacket and crushed out my burning cigarette under my boot. The rain fell harder. “Thanks for cutting me a break. You can shove your lecture up your ass.”
He laughed at me. “Suddenly you’re a tough guy again.”
I stood in the rain, in the middle of the street, until his car turned back onto Richmond Avenue. Your island, I thought. You can fucking have it.
I made for the kitchen and a beer. I needed something to wash the lingering blood and bile from my mouth. Julia was waiting for me at the kitchen table, in her pajamas, wrapped in a blanket. Like the goddamn ghost of my mother, complete with steaming mug of tea. For a weird instant I was sixteen again. How
had
this night gotten so fucked up?
“Interesting message on the machine,” she said. “Phone woke me up but I didn’t catch the call. Press the button.”
I skipped past my message from earlier. There was a hang-up. Molly, maybe. Possibly Virginia. I decided not to care. The next message was from Waters.
“Julia, sorry to bother you so late. This is Nat Waters. I’ll be dropping off your shithead brother in about an hour. He’ll have some news for you. You probably won’t want to, but let him in anyway. I don’t want him out on the streets.”
Julia folded her hands. I slumped onto the bench. It was ice cold in that kitchen.
“So I don’t know what to ask first,” she said. “Let’s start with what happened to your face.”
I ran my knuckles along my jaw. “Waters tried smacking some sense into me.” I sipped my beer. “I got knocked around, I got a stern lecture. It was glorious, like having the old man back for a brief, shining moment.”
Julia said nothing. Behind her eyes, I could see her rifling through the files, counting the nights she’d listen to me talk shit while a bruise flushed and colored on my face. But this night was different. Her eyes didn’t go soft with sympathy, like they always had in the past. I could tell, just from the set of her shoulders, from the feel of the room, that she’d been loading up for me since she got that phone call. Bad memories weren’t going to get me off the hook this time. Waters wasn’t the only one getting sick of my shit.
“Did it work?” she asked.
“Did it then?”
“God, you are fucking tiresome sometimes,” she said. The words came out slow and heavy. She meant it. “What’s the news?”
“Waters said they have some leads. He didn’t say so directly, but I think he thinks they’re gonna get someone for killing the old man.”
Julia’s eyes defrosted. She was excited, hopeful, for a moment.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said.
Julia blew on her tea. “Do I want to know why Waters was smacking you around and driving you home?”
“You might enjoy this,” I said. “I decked Purvis at the old Choir Loft.”
The color drained from her face. “You fought a police detective in public?”
“I kicked his ass.”
“You assaulted a cop?”
She wasn’t enjoying it. I went on the defensive.
“He had it coming. You think I’d do something like that without a good reason?”
“You are unbelievable, Junior.” She threw her hands up. “I can’t believe I’m surprised, but I am.”
Christ, what was her problem? She knew firsthand what a little shit he was. I had to drop the big card.
“He was bad-mouthing Mom.”
It didn’t have the desired effect.
“So what?” she said. “Who cares what he thinks? Or says?”
“I thought you would, of all people. About Mom, at least.”
“Me? I knew Mom better than anyone in this crazy family. What do I care what a jerk-off like Carlo says?” She slumped in the chair, covered her face with her hands. “I can’t stand it. I really can’t.” Then she sat back in her chair, slowly wrapping her fingers around her mug. It was like having my mother back from the grave. “The problem isn’t Purvis, or Waters, or Dad. The problem is you, Junior.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You’re a bitter, hateful man who doesn’t know what to do with himself, beyond get drunk and pick fights with a world that’s not interested. I keep waiting for you to grow out of it, but you only get worse, the older you get. And I am fucking fed up.” Julia stood, waiting for me to answer. “Look at you. Your father’s wake is tomorrow night and you’re shit-ass drunk, coming home in the back of a cop car.” She pulled the blanket around her and leaned into my face. “You want to run amok through your own life, that’s fine, but not through mine. I won’t have it. You said you came here for me, and you’re making me miserable. It’s selfish and it’s mean.”
I gaped, mouthing at the air like a fish on the bank. “It’s not on purpose.” That was the best I could do. “Purvis was asking for it. You weren’t there.”
“Do you do anything on purpose, good or bad? Or is everything just random with you? It sure seems like it. It doesn’t matter if I wasn’t there. I know you. You just walk around, blowing shit up at random, thinking of excuses for it later. Getting pissed off when people don’t understand.
“And who cares about Purvis? What about what I’m asking for, Junior? You got anything coming my way? Any kindness? Compassion? Or is anger all you’ve got to give anymore?”
“Why not? It’s all I ever got,” I said. “And now it’s all I’m getting from you.”
“That’s such bullshit, Junior. You know it. You make me furious, but I love you. Mom loved you. Virginia loved you. Molly probably still does. Who knows how long she has? I know you won’t believe it, but somewhere inside, Dad did. He could never have been so . . . so violent with you if he didn’t.
“You’ve had your share of the good stuff, Junior, even if you never got it from him, but all you ever do is spit it back in people’s faces. You always throw it away. It broke Mom’s heart when you stopped coming back here to visit. She blamed herself, and you let her. Why, Junior? Why do people have to pay such a price for loving you? Why is the pain all you’ll accept, all you’ll remember? Why can’t you hold on to anything else?”
I didn’t have an answer. But I didn’t argue with her, either.
“When does your whole life stop being about Dad? I’m sorry. I am. Even now, mad as I am at you, my heart breaks for what he did to you. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it. I’m sorry Mom didn’t stop it. It’s horrible. But it’s over now, Junior. It’s been over for years.”
“It’s never over,” I said. “I want it to be. So bad it hurts.” I was crying. She wasn’t. “I’ve tried, Julia. I really have. But it hurts all the time.”
“Then try something different,” she said, her voice thick with the emotion she’d exiled from her face. “Please. There’s nothing I can do but beg you.”
“It’s too late. I’m too polluted, Julia, and I’ll never be clean.” I held out my empty, swollen hands. “What do I do? I don’t know what to do.”
“I can’t tell you that. It’s your life. Yours, Junior. You have to find it.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve known better than to ask for your help, to ask you to suddenly be the son and the big brother you’ve never really wanted to be. It was too much to ask.” She was crying now. “I just . . . I just wanted it.” She wiped her eyes in the blanket. “Just go home. It’s okay. It’s what you wanted from the beginning. You win.”
She dumped her tea in the sink and went to bed.
I went as far as the backyard. The rain had stopped, though the sky hadn’t cleared. Out there, I couldn’t hear her crying.
I smoked and drank a beer, and then another. Try something different, my sister said. I looked across the neighbors’ yards, the flower boxes, the concrete patios, the plastic lawn furniture, the oblong swimming pools covered with dark blue tarps. The block was silent; it was too early in the spring for the hum of air conditioners and pool filters. It was too late at night for the mumble of televisions.
Try something different. Like what? Be like Waters? Wandering all night, a used-up man in a used-up car full of used-up coffee cups, hollering about what a knight in shining armor I was? Should I be more like my neighbors? Get me a Sears tie and a real job. A steady paycheck, benefits, a 401K. I could fight with the rest of the block over who gets to park the minivan where. Over whose neglected Christmas puppy barks too much. Is that what I should do with myself? Live my life on a train schedule, a bus schedule, a ferry schedule. A school, dentist, and soccer practice schedule? I’d already lived a life on everyone else’s schedule; I’d already been a kid.
I lit another cigarette, easing into an old, rusty lawn chair. I stared into the burning match, pulled from a Crossroads matchbook. When it burned down, I tossed it aside and lit another, breathing in the sulfur. I had a bad ache in my chest, different from the sharp stabs I’d started getting since the shooting. It felt old, like my busted ribs from years ago hadn’t healed right. Yeah, I was my own man all right. Didn’t my beer and my cigarettes, my afternoon of ex-lovers, my split knuckles, my ride home in the back of a cop car tell me so? A dozen years out of the house, shift after shift, bottle after bottle, girl after girl, sunrise after sunrise, and there I was in my father’s yard—drunk, angry, and alone. I lit another match, watched it burn down.
I’d spent countless nights out here in high school. Sleepless, restless, for no reason I could figure out, clinging to the ache of something broken in my chest then, too. I chain-smoked around the side of the house, pounding down a strong screwdriver full of Mom’s vodka. Through the chain-link fence that bordered the yard, I stared out at the empty street and wrestled with the urge to wander the dark and silent neighborhood. I needed to go looking for something. Sometimes I even felt something calling to me. It wasn’t a voice. It was just a hum in the air, like the vibrations of the metal tracks before the train rolled into the station. But I knew there was nothing out there to find. I knew I was surrounded on all sides by streets just like mine, full of houses, and backyards, just like mine. And so I never went anywhere. I stayed in the yard watching the empty street and listening to the trains rattling in the distance.

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